From February 15, Google's Chrome browser will begin zapping ads that don't conform with new taste guidelines. But what those guidelines mean exactly is anyone's guess.
Google confirmed that blocking would begin in a developer blog post.
Google is a member of the Coalition for Better Ads – a group launched last year to …

Thanks...

Re: Thanks...

You've also got to allow Googles analytics, have a registered google account and have the web site properties registered against your Google account before you can see the sites status. ie. you've got to tell Google who you are, and which web sites you own, before it will tell you what it's going to do with it.

Talk about tracking !!!

Only one worthwhile option... stop using Chrome.

Not that I have ads on any of my sites, but I do like to know what Chrome is going to do to them. And if it blocks my sites because of some reason other than ads... like content... or falsely determining an ad that isn't an ad. I just don't trust Google. Full stop.

Re: Thanks...

@msknight ... Re: Thanks...

I only use chrome when I have to use it for clients that meet via Google Hangouts and when I want to watch Comcast on my PC. Seems they don't like Firefox... While I don't get an overt message to not use Firefox, I keep getting stream errors.

And I agree, not to trust Google. Want to bet that they'll offer a 'service' to the advertisers to white list their ads so you can't block them?

Re: @msknight ... Thanks...

They probably already have offered such a service in preparation for it, so they can seem like good guys to consumers ("hey we're blocking the BAD ads but we know you want to see ads about things you are interested in!") while using it as leverage to make advertisers pay them premium rates for ads that Chrome won't block.

Of course we won't hear about this for a few years, because it will be protected by major NDAs in their contracts because the whole thing falls apart once people know the truth.

Re: Let's hope...

Most local papers are owned by one of a small number of national companies, so its quite possible a lot of them are using the same Web host design ( these are the same companies that successfully lobbied to have the news/weather/traffic etc pages removed from BBC local radio web sites ).

A sort of sweet-talking, cliche term used by temp agencies and other employers to give you the impression they have some particular vested emotional interest in helping you, when really they are just screwing you over.

An unfortunately creepy term that is means "to contact" or similar. Brings to mind grasping and undesirable contact from strangers.

Putting the reins of ad-blocking in the hands of the biggest ad-slinger. Now that's a great idea.

</sarcasm>

"Google is a member of the Coalition for Better Ads – a group launched last year to represent digital advertising businesses including Facebook and big brands."

To me, this reads as "...the Coalition for Better Ads - a cabal of the ad-slinging big boys who will use their new ad-blocking toy to unfairly discriminate against smaller advertisers. Now I'm no fan of the smaller ad networks (in my experience they tend to be worse for malware, popups etc) but at least most of them don't track your soul across this world, the next and the one after that as well. For that, you need the likes of Google and Facebook. Should a smaller, new ad network with a much greater ethic and better user experience pop up (stop laughing, it could happen!), I'm fairly sure they'll somehow run afoul of this new feature.

I'm with most other commentards thus far. I'll stick with adblock etc.

Re: If only they also banned...

I wouldn't mind these too much if they at least included a button/tick box option that included 'Don't tell me again about the app'.

One offender of this is reddit, I mostly use reddit on the PC, and only tend to look on the tablet or phone if it's to check someone response to something I posted (which isn't often).

I don't see the point in installing an app, for the once a week at most chance of me accessing reddit on a mobile device.

And besides, the reddit mobile side, actually works perfectly well. So there really is no need for an app, unless you want things like live notifications. But email works fine for this as well, and also work son the PC!

Thats' just one example, lots of other similar things.

Another is example MS Teams web site, it keeps asking me to use/install the Desktop app, rather than the website, 'because it's faster/better etc.'.

Well, no it isn't, MS on the Desktop (Win 10 company laptop) is horrendously slow, whereas the web site is quite nippy, and most of my time is spent on a Linux development laptop anyway, which they don't even support!

Re: If only they also banned...

If only they also banned:

a) anything with scripting or 3rd party cookies or user-identifiable URLs. Period. [if I click on the link and it tracks me on THEIR servers, that's their business. But the ad itself should be benign].

b) anything that has motion in it [especially flash and *shudder* HTML5 video, even WITHOUT sound]. Animated gifs are just as bad and should never 'autoplay' anyway.

c) anything larger than 100k bytes. yes, I'm being generous.

d) anything that requires a user interaction in ANY form, even if it's to stop the countdown early

e) anything that blocks the content if "not viewed" (including those for sites that give you 'forbidden' or other errors from nginx if you happen to have noscript running)

Re: Not acceptable

In addition to tracking, I also noticed that javascript within an ad is not considered unacceptable. That javascript definitely helps with the tracking. But is also means that malvertising will still exist. Two days ago, I was helping someone on their computer and every time we went to yahoo.com, his browser was redirected to a scam "Microsoft alert!" page. This happened every time, and each scam page was a different domain.

This whole situation just seems like a distraction. Tell people you are concerned with only acceptable ads, make the definition of acceptable purposefully weak, and then tell everyone you care so don't use an ad-blocker. This is an ad-slinger trying to trick you into letting them make more money off you by pretending they care.

Re: Not acceptable

STOP THIS AT ONCE!

I'm detecting a less than positive attitude from the users of this thread, both towards the benevolent motives of Google and the delights of adverts. Adverts I might add that have been carefully and specifically targettedchosen to meet your individual needs and desires.

What kind of cynical grumpy-guts are you people, to fail to appreciate the care (No! The LoveTM) that Google showers upon you? Everyday and everywhere you go, we are watching over you all.

Re: STOP THIS AT ONCE!

I must admit that having habitually turned off and blocked everything I can bar the actual content of the web, my eyes were opened to what I have been missing when I tried out the YouTube app on my new, inevitably "smart", TV. Watch a handful of videos and within minutes the pre-roll and mid-roll advertising starts to reflect the content of what I've been watching.

I now appreciate the extent of Google's warm love showers much in the same way, I imagine, as pot plants appreciate the extent of Harvey Weinstein's.

Re: STOP THIS AT ONCE!

I shall resist owning one of those

Good luck with that - if you want a larger screen size with a decent picture quality you're likely to be out of luck. The reason the "dumb" ones are cheaper is that they strip out everything - including the more expensive panels and advanced video processing.

I also suspect (though I have no actual knowledge) that the cost of "smart" TVs is to some extent subsidised (or the margin is maintained) by the potential to upsell commercial streaming services and/or user behavioural data, so the incentive to sell dumb devices is diminishing.

Re: STOP THIS AT ONCE!

Internet before adverts, it was called ARPANET..

I have been online since the mid nineties and advertising had been pretty much the only money earner, bar subscriptions.

So either go to the pay model or you have adverts, it's that simple. How do you think el-reg makes money and keeps an office open? They rely 100% on advertising, be it obvious advertising like banner adverts, or less obvious "reviews"

Re: STOP THIS AT ONCE!

Re: STOP THIS AT ONCE!

I've been on the internet for even longer, and I remember when ads weren't so invasive.

"So either go to the pay model or you have adverts"

Not at all. There are many other ways to aside from those two, and you used to see them much more often. The "problem" with them is the site operators have to do them themselves, rather than taking the lazy route and offloading it all onto a third party such as an ad network.

Re: ad lock

Re: ad lock

If I'm being spied on, then it's not "for free". But that aside... if what were true, then I wouldn't pay money to sites I value (and that allow me to). Yet, I do. But I won't whitelist those sites, either.

Re: Is this censorship?

"...including Facebook..." ??

"...Coalition for Better Ads – a group launched last year to represent digital advertising businesses including Facebook..."

The very worst on-line ads that I'm ever exposed to are to be found on Facebook. Trying to watch a short little video of something interesting, and right in the middle, an ad suddenly pops up and interrupts the video.

Re: "...including Facebook..." ??

There's no way this feature will survive, it's an entire anti-trust lawsuit waiting to happen for an abuse of monopoly, linking their pre-installed browser product with ad-blocking when they also sell adverts.

Stable Door Bolt Etc.

I'm a regular reader of eurogamer, for game news. They would put the frikken annoying videos that autoplayed in the middle of the article, you'd start reading the article then all of a sudden you'd get a video for some PS4 game (that I already owned anyhow). I naturally now block all adverts on eurogamer. Now they throw a hissy fit "we notice you're using an adblocker, please stop it", sorry, doesn't matter which "better advertising standard" you've signed up to, if you were a dick in the past you're on my adblocker and staying on it.

The register however is not on my blocklist, so far their ads are tolerable and this is a site I use more than 2 or 3 times a day.

Re: Stable Door Bolt Etc.

Re: Stable Door Bolt Etc.

I've also used uBlock Origin to block the ad-blocker blocker.

I've had a few sites that have done large, or full screen overlays over the entire article, complaining that I'm using an adblocker. (This on sites with annoying ads). So I just used the pipette tool in uBlock Origin to select the warning, and hey presto, the article is back :-)

I forget how bad the web looks these days for people who don't use ad blockers:-/

Re: Stable Door Bolt Etc.

I forget how bad the web looks these days for people who don't use ad blockers:-/

I turned off my ad blocker for a few minutes last week. After doing so I went to google news and clicked on an article (while using Chrome). Immediately I got a notice that Defender had stopped a trojan from installing. That's going to be the last time I ever turn that off again.

Take out the trash

So.... we want services like search and social media but we don't want to pay a subscription fee and we either don't want adverts or we'll only accept adverts if they're so unobtrusive as to be ineffectual.